Solemn Saturday

[Harriet]

Call to dd19 has changed much. She's arranged a ride back to univ tomorrow evening if she can get a ride home today. Fine, we can do that. She has already planned with ds and ddil that she'll also babysit tonight. Have no idea what datenight THEY have managed to schedule, sandwiched between a trip and a hosting of Easter get-together, but dd is happy to get a little money. Guess they may be going out to buy table items or food, actually.

Then tomorrow dd will go alone as soprano to rehearsal, and attend breakfast at church, and I'll just go for the service. That suits me, because the breakfast is happening at 9:30, and I don't need any "shoulds" or "oughts" about being there at 9:30 on other Sundays if I can be there for a breakfast. She will probably take the opportunity to tell folks that she won't be seeing them much for the rest of the semester.

I've been to mailbox with what I had, so that's the best I can do. Just can't worry about everything.

Just found out from dd as well, I've got a gallery event she dreams I'll attend on Wednesday at 3. Yipes. Don't know how to navigate or park but if you're not a little nervous you're not alive, right?

Adding that to Mon and Thurs mornings taking care of BOTH ds' children because of school breaks/workdays. Then houseguests coming then party here that I'd like to try to make nice.. ... Oh, dawns on me dd19 does NOT know that dd38 may come... ..possibly can't go to toddlerC's party.

I need an administrative assistant.

[Nancy]

WTG everyobe on your progress!

Hens are fed. I watched dog training show calked "Lucky Dog" this week I will focus on "heel" command on short led I walked her to the corner going at fast then slow and stopping alternating that down and back.

I have m. Bedroom sheets off the bed and they are in the dryer now waiting on them. Spiffed up counters, did bathroom before bed. Got a compliment from h he said it is great what I call the pit now is cleaner than before!

I got the groc. List made out and in my purse for later.
So glad I had down time this week was feeling puny now I realized my ear was acting up.

My shoulder is improving but still somewhat sore.

[LadyMaverick]

Today has progressed fairly smoothly with a few bumps here and there.

** DGD6 and DS9 were up earlier than normal and mostly got themselves ready (with monitoring and a few promptings from me).
** Breakfast made & served to all.
** OA homework completed
** DD came and picked up DGD6 before we left for the egg hunt. DD wasn't in the egg hunting mode today.
** DS9 and I arrived on time or him to fulfill one of his volunteer requirements for 4H. He teamed up with several friends to hide 1000's of eggs. They would get tired of doing it with one method and move on to a new way of distributing the eggs. There was the "who can throw an egg the farthest method", the "drop & kick" method. the "hold the 5-gallon buckets filled with eggs and twirl as fast as you can" method, and on and on. End results were the boys had a good time and the eggs were well distributed.
** After the boys put out the thousands of eggs then I went to each field and distributed 6 prize eggs in each field.
** DS9 did decide to hunt eggs. He was in the 7-9-year-old group. I hope he continues to do this another couple of years. Next year he will be in the 10-12 years olds. I want this childhood memory for him.
** I passed out the prizes to the 10-12 year olds group so I wasn't able to watch DS9 the whole time he hunted eggs. I did get to watch the beginning and get some good pictures.
** DH and DS9 went to get a haircut. However, DS9 Tourette head whiplash tics were so frequent the decision was made in the barber shop to not cut DS9 hair. The barber was afraid he would cut DS9 skin when the tics happened. I'll probably give DS9 a trim later today if the tics calm down. DS9 voluntarily gave away about 90% of his candy at the Easter egg hunt but I know he did eat some candy and I'm sure it had food dye.
** I have the 10 lbs of meat in the oven for tomorrow's lunch meal. I couldn't decide how to cook it but finally decided on the old fashion method of using the oven. I prefer the Instant Pot but I don't think I've cooked that much meat at once and I wasn't sure I could stuff it all in there and I didn't know about the end result. I decided to go with the oven method because it is absolutely known outcome.
** Lunch was shrimp, brown rice, onion, bell peppers, garlic and butter sauteed together. YUM.

[LadyMaverick]

I found it interesting to read what others are doing for Easter weekend activities including the commercial side. I find myself wondering if it is a religion based different or location/culture based. In the little town where I was raised the Catholic Church was the only ones who did anything extra for Easter. I can't remember any of the other churches doing anything other than communion We have Baptist, Methodist, Christain, Church of God and Assembly of God and non-denomination (aka Cowboy Church). I do wish we did something extra though.

Our church did rent another 150 extra chairs for tomorrow. Our church is bulging at the seams and Easter Sunday is typically the highest attendance of the year. Eventually, we will get around to buying more chairs but that has the "Where will we store them?" challenge. Until that is solved (building on) we just keep renting extra chairs.

[Harmony]

Most of our churches around here have some sort of services going on this week. Ours too I think. I remember setting up for the communion Wednesday a couple years ago. I have a conundrum with services tomorrow. DH will want to go to last service Sunday because he sits with the youth group and that's the service most of them attend. But it is the busiest service and I really don't want to do that.

Our SUV is still out at friend's and we don't expect him to get it done, with Easter and he has a parent in the hospital...so I can't expect it. He is putting a part in for us we have no clue how to do. I would go to the sunrise service but I am thinking do I really want to do that in the dump truck? I've been riding it around but it isn't the most comfortable vehicle to drive being wide on the road. It runs great though...

Have been out last day and this morning helping DH do a bunch of work he couldn't do himself. It was a lot of work actually in a tight spot with no spaces to spread out our tools. Also beside a big air conditioning unit that whooshed air out at us while we were trying to work next to it. Today it has sprinkled a bit so it is work in the rain. Not the most pleasant experience. I was so tired today I woke up but went back to sleep for 2 1/2 hours.

Retail used to close just for a few hours in the middle of the afternoon on Good Friday. Most no longer do that. Supply store for us did close yesterday and they set out the stuff for us at the corner of the building behind a bush where I was able to grab it. Our job would have been stopped had we not been able to pick that up.

Today I got groceries on the way back. Thought I'd just run in for some eggs so I could make some hard boiled and color them. I think it's important for us to do something special for ourselves on a holiday even though we don't have company, otherwise what's the joy in life any more? So I got them and began to think about making a nice dinner and got a cart load of stuff.

I think I will make some things ahead for tonight and tomorrow, so I need to get busy on that. I noticed that truck is on E so might take that out to fill it up. Trying to decide, shall I just go to church tonight instead? Maybe... better get moving along here.

Harriet, hope all those plans for everybody work out. Just remember, if all your family were out of state or hours away and didn't come you wouldn't have the blessing of these plans.

I hope booksaver's car is ok now with mystery mechanical problem.
Twins we went to a house auction once and bought a sectional set that we used for years. There are companies who will come and sell it all, advertise it, run the whole thing. This one had everything outside and a whole house inside people could go in to see. Stuff went very reasonable.

[Ramblinrose]

Harmony... love the visual of you driving a dump truck with your hair blowing around and you wizzing around town. Wild woman at work ... gotta love it

[lucylee]

went to post office
picked up breakfast, ate
S2S
S/S baths and cleaned dh's shower
dmom came and got her meds for next week
piddled around on computer, transferred pics to computer files

Of course, it has taken me... hmmm... almost 5 hours to do that???
Sheesh. And I need to go BACK to town in a bit... and then go get dgs to spend the night.

Waving to ALL!!! Hope you all have a wonderful Easter -- and Passover -- weekend.

[Nancy]

H is doing his round in the front yard now. I have clean sheets back on the bed and it is remade now. Folded and put away the next load. Hens have been fed and are out for their free range time. Dd just messeged and said they are coming.

[Harmony]

Our dump truck is probably not what you think. It is a 3/4 ton pickup which DH took the bed off and made a custom welded aluminum bed with a lumber rack up on top. He put hydraulics underneath to make it a dump. It is all painted white. And it has extra springs underneath that make it haul more and it has BIG single tires, not the double ones. Still, it looks intimidating on the road and people move out of my way.

The funniest thing about it is it's a chick magnet. Just cute enough to be attractive and big enough to be whoa look at that guy! Once when DH had a flat tire with a bunch of metal strapped on the top a car full of chicks stopped to see if he needed help. Gals remark at stop lights when they're next to him. It's really really funny. That's what we call it, the Chick Magnet!

And I took it to the gas station and gassed it up. As you can imagine, it doesn't get good gas mileage.

I have au gratin potatoes (from scratch) baking in the oven. Ham is baked. Boiled eggs and colored them. I've decided to lumber down to church tonight. I need to leave in less than an hour so better get dressed. DH is still out.

[LadyMaverick]

What a wonderful cook I am >>>>said with sarcasm<<<< I have filled the house with smoke not once but TWICE this afternoon. The bottom of my oven is now covered in salt to stop the juices from smoking.

I have kept all 3 oven racks filled for the past 4 hours. I just rotate things in/out as they finish cooking. The meat has been the only constant during that 4 hour period and it is solely responsible for the smoking up the house because it keeps bubbling over. Obviously, I should have used a larger pan to cook it in or dividing it up into 2 pans. OHS Well. Thankfully it is a beautiful day so I have all the windows and doors open to encourage the smoke clearing out.

In between prepping food to put into the oven and transfer the cooked food to serving dishes........I have managed to implement new screen access restrictions for DS9 on both the Microsoft devices and the Amazon devices. He was limited to using screens by using a schedule and turning the internet on/off at a set time using Google mesh settings. However, DH and I made the decision to limit screen time for DS9 even more after his doctor appointment this week where we were told again to severely limit DS9 screen time. They suggested 30 minutes a day but we decided to go with 1 hour a day. Even though we doubled the suggested time limit, we are now in "mean parent" mode. None of his friends have this restriction (so he says). Honestly, it would be so much easier for us if we used screens as a babysitter. Kids playing video games are easy to take care of vs those kids who are active, inventing, making messes, talking non-stop, etc.